Stuff I’ve been reading this week that you should think about reading too
by Steve
This is a thinly veiled attempt to increase my posting frequency without having to put a whole lot of thought or effort into it. So, thinly veiled, in fact, that I have explained my motivation in the very first sentence. But I bet you are now just itching to click through to find a few links, probably poorly formatted, with my ill-considered commentary attached?
Well, welcome, clicker! I’ll try not to let you down here, but here are a few things I’ve enjoyed this week.
The Paris Review blog’s Culture Diaries are pretty addictive. I love reading about what other people are reading and watching, and this series does it particularly well, with each contributor giving us a one week window on their cultural consumption. Sure, some of it is open to scorn or parody (especially those claiming to get up at 4.30 every morning to read some esoteric, scholarly tome), but that’s part of the fun. I’m tempted to try my own version of it, but I suspect it wouldn’t be anywhere near as highbrow. Still, it might make me highbrow for a week, just so I can look learned and fancy here. Then I can go back to watching crap TV and reading free newspapers.
In a bid to read less crap I’ve got myself an Instapaper account, and hooked it up to my fancy smartphone, so I can save long form articles to read later, at my convenience. So far I’ve read an essay on the working class in American literature and enjoyed it very much. Hopefully, this will mean I will spend more time on my phone reading quality journalism than playing Baseball Superstars. Then again, who am I kidding.
Finally, I really enjoyed the mighty Craig Calcaterra’s take on comparing baseball to pro wrestling. I’m a bit of a closet pro wrestling fan, you see. I’m sure I have a great big blog post about the wonders of wrestling somewhere. It would be a great excuse to post pictures of men from the eighties in lycra, too. Which is what we all want to see.
Well, I hope you enjoy some of these links. Maybe you could share what you’ve enjoyed over the last week?
Wait until next year 
Thanks for the links. I didn’t know about Instapaper until your post. I’ve had a quick dig around and, once I’ve finished this comment, I’ll be registering for an account of my own. The Paris Review Culture Diaries are great aren’t they?
As for suggestions of my own I have two at the moment. The first is a great post on a blog I read regularly, Le Grimpeur. As the title suggests it’s a blog centred on cycling, specifically climbing. This essay, and I use that term advisedly, is no exception but it delves into the connections between sports and politics using the career/life of Italian cyclist Bartali as a richly suggestive starting point. You can find “The Politics of the Personal” here: http://le-grimpeur.net/blog/archives/215
The other is novel I just finished called The Prestige by Christopher Priest. Apparently a film adaption was made, but I missed that when it was released. It’s not a perfect book by any means but the Victorianist in me was kept immensely entertained. Told through a series of notebook entries it’s a narrative of a feud between two English fin de siecle magicians. The ending isn’t surprise by any means but I still found it deliciously shocking for reasons I haven’t entirely worked out yet.
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Instapaper has been fantastic so far. I’m now far more likely to read longer articles I find online, especially now I’ve hooked this up to my phone. Apart from the usual places, http://givemesomethingtoread.com/ and http://www.theawl.com/ are good places to find suitable stuff to ‘read later’.
The Culture Diaries really are great. They appeal to my nosiness no end.
I’ll certainly check out that post – sounds fascinating. I may well add that book to my ever-growing ‘to read’ list too…
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